White Noise
by Solia
Summary: Following the events of The Last Jedi, the Force bond forged between their minds hasn't broken as expected. She senses him in every unguarded moment - a glance, a flicker of black cloak, a whisper against the silence of hyperspace. Even worse, he's in her dreams. And she's in his. Rating for language and implied Reylo.
1. Part 1

Title: White Noise

Fandom: Star Wars

Rating: T for now

Disclaimer: I do not own _Star Wars_ or any of its characters. That all belongs to Disney, along with most things these days, I hear, including George Lucas's soul, which I assume is what you get when you pay someone $4 billion. I own pretty much nothing comparatively and I'm not making any money off this. Don't sue me.

Author's notes: After watching _The Last Jedi_ for a third time, I'm pretty much over my initial misgivings about it and am happily sailing my new Reylo ship into the double Ahch-To sunset. This came to me today and despite all the other things I should be doing, such as working on my _X-Files_ fic or, I don't know, my own original writing, I simply had to dedicate my afternoon to writing it down, mostly to explore my fascination with Rey and Kylo's relationship and, a little bit, to redeem another character I still feel was improperly treated by the _TLJ_ narrative. I haven't written for _Star Wars_ before so please forgive any transgressions of fandom etiquette I'm not aware of. I have plans for more but I'll see what happens with those. I hope you enjoy, and would love constructive feedback!

/

She shouldn't have touched his hand.

Months passed and she tried not to think of him, not as she worked with his mother and her loyalists to rebuild the Rebellion, not as she found herself increasingly relied upon as a pilot in their decimated force, not as she struggled to find time to refine and practise her skills as a fledgling Jedi among her other, more pressing responsibilities. She tried not to think of him as she watched Finn and Rose grow closer, painfully sweet as they were, and she tried not to think of him as she watched Leia and Poe's respectful warmth, more acutely aware than most of whose role Poe was filling for the grieving General.

When she kept busy, which wasn't hard, she succeeded in forgetting him. He was licking his wounds just as surely as his First Order were, just as she and the Rebels were. It was the closest approximation of peace anyone could have hoped for so soon, both sides too weak to strike out at the other, the galaxy at a breathless standstill, wary of choosing a side in a war that could still go either way.

When she ran out of productive distractions, that was when she felt it – their connection, forged by Snoke, still unbroken despite Kylo Ren's betrayal. She couldn't explain it but neither could she ask anybody about it. Rarely an experience so complete as when she was on Ahch-To, she no longer found herself looking at him, talking to him, trapped in an artificial room with him while all her other senses dulled. Trapped with him in endless white noise. She was actively avoiding thinking of him, and distinctly felt he was doing the same thing, and didn't expect that to happen again without Snoke's intervention. Instead, it was snatches, glimpses, a _feeling_ she couldn't, or wouldn't, pin down. It was a gaze catching hers unexpectedly when she zoned out during a boring briefing, gone just as soon as she blinked, startled back to her senses. It was another breath synchronised with hers when she meditated and felt for the Force, gone as soon as she opened her eyes. It was a flick of a black cloak at the edge of her vision while she trained with her staff, a flash of sizzling red in the sparks of her microtools as she frustrated herself trying to fix the Skywalker lightsaber. It was a _pull_ when she lay dozing in the pilot seat of the _Falcon_ , ferrying supplies for the Rebellion, a disconcerting whisper against the silence of hyperspace.

It was temptation. The first of the books she'd stolen from the island warned of this: the dark side, tugging at her soul, baiting her with what it knew she couldn't resist.

Worst was when she slept, when she dreamed and had no control of where her mind strayed. And stray it did. Confused, conflicted feelings of anger, loneliness, fear, disappointment, admiration, hurt and curious fascination swirled unchecked inside her, taking unsettling shapes in her subconscious, playing out in imaginary scenarios that varied in inappropriateness and foolhardiness, ensuring she woke most nights gasping and ashamed with the truths of herself.

In her dreams, her memories and desires and fears coalesced murkily. She found herself in battle with him over and over, in the snow, in Snoke's throne room, in the jungle, on the salt flat in Luke's place. Sometimes she won. She wanted to kill Kylo Ren for what he had done to the galaxy, to Han Solo, to the Jedi Order, to _her_. In those dreams she played out her desire to hurt him, see those dark eyes he'd inherited from his beautiful mother widen in shock and fear of her as she bested him and brought him to his knees, right before she put her saber through his chest. Always through his heart. He never wore his mask and she never took his head; though she slashed furiously at the face that haunted her, she could never do more damage than she'd inflicted outside Starkiller Base. He gained that scar over and over, and she burnt a hole through his heart over and over, and he screamed and begged and snarled and fell and tears spilled from those eyes she could not forget until the light went out in them, over and over again, but it was never enough to quell the hatred she felt for him. There was no satisfaction to be gained in defeating him.

Other times, she lost. These dreams left her just as hollow and unsated. She fought with all she had but in these dreams, it was not enough, and he took her down. He was unreasonable, infallible, the monster she had accused him of being, and he was so much _more_ than she, stronger and bigger and _better_. His moves were fast and unpredictable, his slashes hacking, his posture animalistic, his control of the Force formidable, and he found her lacking at every turn. He shamed her with his impressiveness, drawing her childish admiration of him into painful, vulnerable light. He hurt her, he tired her out, he humbled her. Sometimes she thought he was toying with her; other times, he just wanted her done with. Every time, his eyes were cold and hateful and vengeful as he kicked her feet out from under her and drove his lightsaber through her. He went for the heart, too. He cared nothing for her, not in these dreams, and she woke from them afraid, face wet with humiliated tears. She was no match.

Then were the dreams that were more memory than fantasy, where he killed his master rather than kill her, where he brought her lightsaber back to her with the faintest touch of the Force he controlled so eloquently, where he stood over her and ignited his lightsaber not to hurt her, but in preparation for the consequences of what he had done. Where his eyes watched her get to her feet, the same eyes that had just watched as she was tortured and thrown about like a useless doll, where those eyes regarded her with resignation and _respect_ and _kinship_ – where she had known he believed in her to be able to fight at his back and hold her own, not needing his protection, where she had known that he _trusted_ her and she could trust him. In the dreams where she battled Snoke's Praetorian guards with Kylo Ren, she was alive, and emboldened, and afraid and horrified by what she was doing, killing with her own hands, killing _with him_ …

She woke from these dreams unsure, even less sure than she awoke from the make-believe dreams, because the reality was far more frightening. She had never felt the Force like she had that day, and she had let it all in – light, dark, all of it, and used it as it guided her to use it. And it had guided her into an alliance with the darkest and most dangerous man she knew, which should have made her feel guilty or wary, but instead it had felt right, and worse: it had felt like Not Alone.

It was short-lived, the goldenness of Not Alone, because then the blue blade ignited through the red guard's helmet and Ben Solo got to his feet, and she asked one more thing of him, to throw his power around a little more, power of the kind she could only fantasise about, to rein in his armies and save the day, and he was Kylo Ren again and he let her down.

The dreams were invariably violent, but not always in this same way. There were dreams of running away, either on foot or in the _Millennium Falcon_ , chased by his dark and menacing presence at the back of her awareness. In these dreams, her heart was in her throat, thudding with terror, knowing when he caught her, she'd be done. She ducked under fallen trees or staircases or space debris in her desperate attempts to lose him, but it was never enough. His TIE fighter swung at her from the other side and fired on her, ending the dream, or a black-gloved hand closed on her collar and dragged her out screaming into the path of a swinging red blade, or, mid-step, she suddenly froze, caught in the web of his power, powerless herself, and behind her, his footsteps crunched on the undergrowth, ever closer, ever nearer…

" _Rey…_ "

His voice left her weak with fear, and something else. Shame? With everything he said to her, he stung her. His words were cutting, even when he didn't mean them to be. When she heard him speak, she knew she should run, but instead she stopped and listened. Somehow, absurdly, his voice had power over her she should be strong enough to resist, but wasn't, even just in dreams. It elicited an instant kick to her heartrate, a drop in her ambient temperature if the goose bumps were anything to go by, and a shaky longing she'd never admit to. In dreams, though they left her red-faced in the dark, she could hear again as he spoke her name, in his dangerous voice that made her quail and sent a shiver along her nerves, and to say again the things he hadn't meant to mean as much as they had – that she was not alone, that she was no one, but not to him.

Things no one else had ever bothered to say, but which she'd always, desperately, deeply wanted to hear. How had he known?

Indulging in reflections of words that meant far more to her than to their speaker led her into spirals of self-disgust, for what kind of nobody needs her enemy's validation to feel whole and worthy? What insufficient scum needs more than the unconditional love and acceptance of a friend and brother like Finn?

" _Join me… Please._ "

Kylo Ren offered no love, certainly none such as the unending, protective love she had found in the former stormtrooper who had thrown his future away for the Rebellion, and for her, but he made her feel needed, wanted; and he did not accept her as she was, as Finn did, but he _understood_ her. He saw her.

And she desired that too completely, too fully, and in her unguarded moments, waking and dreaming, she was haunted by his eyes, _seeing_ her, _understanding_ what she was, _wanting_ her on his side.

Their fingertips touching impossibly through space and time.

The shock of electricity shared between them. The Force, untempered, wild and eerie.

The intensity of his vulnerable gaze. Not Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. Or were they one and the same, indistinguishable? Which one was it in the dreams where his eyes burned into her and made her stomach flutter? Who did she imagine would drag his fingers through her hair and murmur her name against her skin?

His fingertips tracing her arm…

His breath on the back of her neck…

His low voice in her ear, forever mocking.

Tonight, it was one of these dreams.

" _Go on, say it_ ," he breathed, poised over her, taunting her. Pinning her to the bed, stretched along her. Eyes glinting, dangerous and fierce in the terrifyingly familiar face she'd scarred. His voice made her shiver with longing, and she tried to sit forward to meet him, but he never made anything easy for her. He pushed her back down." _Say it._ "

She swallowed. " _Please_."

And he gave in to her.

Rey sat up in bed, gasping for air and struggling against the binding of her loose blankets, which just a moment ago had been his hands, running the length of her body under his as his mouth closed on hers, his full lips exactly as soft as they looked each time she noticed them but exactly as strong and disarming as the words they produced. She pushed the blankets from her legs and swung her arm blindly at the wall beside her bedding. A warm, soft red light grew from the sconce above her, protecting her night vision. The small cubicle she called her quarters at the new Rebel base was darkened for the two daily night cycles, one of which she used for her scheduled sleep shift. She looked around the tiny space, from her one-person bunk (containing, thankfully, only one person, despite the inclinations of the dream) to the workbench along the opposite wall where her lightsaber still lay in the glinting pieces they'd wrenched it into like spoiled children fighting over a toy, to the small mat she'd laid on the floor between. She could see nothing out of place, no signs of disturbance, no indications of another presence.

She was alert now, so there would be no whisper, no flick of black cloak, no unexpected loaded gaze. But she still breathed deeply until she had control of her insane pulse, and listened, and looked, and waited, just in case.

She was pathetic.

She lowered her head into her hands with a groan, feeling sick. Who was she? The Rey of her dreams was variably a vicious murderer, a failure, a victim and a traitor. Her skin felt clammy and slick, and she dug the heels of her hands into her eyes when she felt them start to sting with the threat of tears. This had to stop but she felt out of control. These psychotic dreams of killing, kissing, hurting, fearing, wanting her greatest enemy, himself a murderer and a traitor but also her heroes' son, they couldn't be the product of a healthy, stable mind.

As much as she hated him, she admired him and desired his respect and attention. She wanted to kill him as much as she wanted to trust him at her back and feel the Force guiding them as one incredible unit. In sync with his every move, protecting his back as he fended off the majority of their foes, knowing he was protecting hers, feeling his motions before he shifted, ducking below his blade before he could swing it, tapping into the intentions of those intending to do him harm and blocking their weapon's path before they could, intensely aware of the way the Force surged through him in the forms of passion and adrenaline, not fear and anger as she'd assumed, she'd felt connected, intimately connected, to another person. He was right in what he'd said, that she was lonely, and searching for family in everyone she met. In Han Solo she'd found a hero but not a dad; in Luke Skywalker, a legend but not a role model; in Leia Organa, a mother's warmth but not a mother's need. Poe Dameron had filled the gap Ben Solo had left in the general – the loss of either of these boys would be what destroyed Leia, not the loss of Rey.

She wanted to _know_ him and be _known_ by him, like nobody had ever let her know them or bothered to know her. They were the only two left, the only ones out there like the other. Two halves. Did she want him like these most disturbing of dreams suggested? She hoped not, refused to analyse them or give them any credibility. They made her feel unwell. The dreams were psychosexual, she told herself, metaphors for the powerplay between them. Domination. Submission. Winning, losing. Manipulation. Need. Desire. Fear.

She wasn't worthy of Luke's tutelage. She saw that now. Whether the hand of the dark side or of Kylo himself, she still fell into the same mistakes every night.

So it surprised her every night that he pretended not to know how troubled and pathetic and absurdly conflicted she was, and he afforded her the benefit of the doubt he had not afforded his own nephew. Faintly blue around his edges, transparent, he appeared cross-legged on the mat on her floor after every nightmare, beard tidy and trimmed like she'd not known in life, haggard face revitalised with spirit, eyes bright and patient and kind and optimistic like the boy his sister Leia remembered.

But not Luke Skywalker, the farm boy from Tatooine.

Not Luke Skywalker, the legend.

Not Luke Skywalker, the bitter old recluse.

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, at peace. And what peace he brought her with his timing every night, balancing her sickened queries of self-worth and her place in the galaxy with his steady presence and his steady, determined failure to ask about the dreams or pass any sort of judgement for what he must already know.

"So," he asked, "shall we continue with Lesson Three?"

Rey smiled in spite of herself. Lesson Three, it turned out, encompassed everything about the Force and the Jedi Luke had left out in the first two very minimalist, very reluctant lessons on Ahch-To. She pushed herself off the bed onto the mat opposite him, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pushing her damp hair from her sweaty forehead. Pushing Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, whoever he was and everything her weak subconscious had attached to him, from her thoughts with more strength than she possessed in her lonely, susceptible solitude.

Lesson Three and Luke didn't make her feel needed or wanted or understood, but Luke, lofty now in his higher plane, could not be said not to _see_ her. He gave her the things he couldn't in life – patience, time, knowledge, wisdom – the things he understood and could see that _she_ needed. He made her feel grounded. In control.

Like a Jedi.

"Yes," she agreed firmly. "Please."


	2. Part 2

Title: White Noise

Fandom: Star Wars

Rating: M now. He said fuck.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Star Wars_ or any of its characters, or anything else, really. I promise to put Disney's toys back in the toybox once I'm done playing.

Author's notes: I have two original publications due to my editors and a half-finished _X-Files_ fic with angry readers awaiting their next fix, yet here I am, ashamedly indulging in my newest ship. I am not sure how far this will go but I'm getting a lot of satisfaction out of exploring these two tortured souls. I am new to writing _Star Wars_ so please forgive any transgressions of fandom etiquette I'm not aware of. Please consider reviewing if you enjoy this, or any other fic you might read today. It means a lot to the writers who are here to further themselves as creatives and engage with fellow fans.

/

He shouldn't have touched her hand.

Months passed and he tried not to think of her, not as he took his place as the new Supreme Leader in Snoke's guilt-ridden absence, not as he found himself quietly locked in political power struggles behind the scenes of his once loud and audacious First Order, rebuilding it from the ground up after the miserable defeat he'd led them into, not as he learned to govern a whole military and political movement he'd never anticipated the reality of. He tried not to think of her as General Hux made snide remarks across the audience chamber about his failures, with her, with Skywalker, with Crait, and he tried not to think of her as his personal guard was appointed and donned their red Praetorian costumes for the first time, each of them unaware that he'd personally killed most of their predecessors. With her.

"We're with you, Supreme Leader," the chief said, and they took up sentinel positions outside his bedchamber.

When he kept busy, which wasn't hard, he succeeded in forgetting her. She would be in hiding, recovering along with her precious, shattered Rebellion, just as he and the First Order were. The ceasefire was unspoken, shaky, necessary, neither side strong enough yet to lash out at the other, no matter how badly they might like to be able to make the first move, and the galaxy they'd fought over waited breathlessly on the sidelines, content to largely govern themselves until one finally rose from the ashes to defeat the other or otherwise win the allegiance of the known systems.

When he ran out of productive distractions, that was when he felt it – their connection, forged by Snoke but unexpectedly unbroken by his master's death, even when all other hints of his dark sorcery dissolved. He couldn't explain it but neither was there anybody to ask. Unlike the first apparitions, he no longer saw her in full or held conversations with her, locked together in a muffled mind palace that blocked out his other senses. Locked with her in endless white noise. He was actively avoiding thinking of her now, and distinctly felt she was doing the same, far away somewhere, and he didn't expect her to stumble into his mind again now that Snoke wasn't pushing matters. Instead, it was hints, allusions, a _suggestion_ he couldn't, or wouldn't, directly deal with. It was the vaguest scent caught on the air when he zoned out of his Generals' dull reports about the reconstruction of the fleet – gone as soon as he inhaled deeper for it, startled back to attention. It was a glance between rows of unmasked officers during a training demonstration. It was another's audible breathing, in time with his, softer, when he was alone with his thoughts, though nobody else could be seen or found. It was a spark of blue off his lightsaber as he threw himself into relentless training with his new guards, a glimmer of an outstretched hand in the corner of a holo-update, the flash of rough, pale fabric around a corner up ahead in a long sleek hallway. It was a _pull_ when he slouched unseen in his undeserved throne between audiences, a disconcerting whisper against the silence of ruling a galaxy alone.

It was temptation. Snoke's teachings had warned him of this: the light side of the Force, tugging on his soul, baiting him with what it knew he couldn't resist.

Worst was when he slept. When he dreamed and had little control of where his mind strayed. And stray it did. Confused, conflicted feelings of anger, hatred, jealousy, craving, awe, hurt and curious captivation swirled unchecked inside him, taking unsettling shapes in his subconscious, playing out imaginary scenarios that varied in impropriety and stupidity, ensuring he woke most nights breathless and furious with himself.

In his dreams, his memories and desires and fears coalesced murkily. He found himself in battle with her over and over, in the throne room, in the snow, in the interrogation room where he'd first shown her his face. Sometimes he won. He wanted to kill Rey from Jakku for what she meant to the Rebellion, to all the people he'd loved, to _him_. In those dreams he played out his desire to hurt her, to throw his untempered jealousy on her like a weight, to see those hazel eyes shine with terror like they did in the forest as he overwhelmed her and brought her to a knee, or right to the ground on her back, and put his saber through her chest. Always through the heart, unless he broke her by smashing her through a tree or a wall or column. Her hair was always pulled back from her face and he never took her head; though he bore down with all his might on the face that plagued him, he could never repay her in kind for marking him in the forest after he'd killed his father. He came down on her with his searing red blade over and over, and he called her nothing over and over, and he pierced her heart over and over, and she screamed and cried and pleaded and apologised and crumpled and tears spilled from those eyes he could not forget until the sparkle went out in them, over and over again, but it was not enough to assuage the hatred he felt for her. There was no satisfaction to be gained in defeating her.

Other times, he lost. These dreams left him just as hollow and disappointed. He fought with all he had but in these dreams, it was not enough, and she took him down. She was untouchable, unreachable, far from the nobody he'd accused her of being, and she was so much _more_ than he, pure in the Force and quick and lithe and _better_. Her moves were graceful, guided by the will of the Force, her reactions intuitive, moving before he could think, always out of the swing of his weapon. She found him lacking at every turn, as his father had, as his mother had, as his uncle had, as his master had, and that only made him more desperate, more determined to impress her, but she shamed him with her saintly perfection. She wounded him, she exhausted him, she chastened him. Sometimes he believed in the dreams that she was toying with him, but he knew it wasn't in her nature and it was his own insecurities whispering in his ear; mostly, she was efficient in her execution. He was not worth her time. Every time, her eyes were cool and sharp, her mind made up, as she sidestepped a move he'd carelessly telegraphed and stabbed her lightsaber through him. She went for the heart, too. She didn't care about him, not in these dreams, and he woke from them upset and unsettled, convinced even more deeply of his own inadequacy.

Then there were the dreams that were more memory than fancy, where something inside him snapped and he suddenly resolved to do what he'd never thought he'd be strong enough to do, where he raised his lightsaber to her terrified face but turned the wrist of his other hand, disguising his true intentions so he could destroy the Supreme Leader whose voice had poisoned his mind since his earliest memory. Where her wide bright eyes met his unwaveringly as she pushed herself to her feet before him, the same eyes that had looked earnestly into his just minutes earlier in the elevator as she insisted he could turn to the light and " _I'll help you_ ", where she nodded in frightened determination – where he had known that she really meant what she said, that she believed in his strength and power, that she _admired_ him and _trusted_ him. In the dreams where he battled the Praetorian guards with Rey, he was on fire, magnificent, powerful, worthy of his lineage and more than the sum of his failures. He was _somebody_ with her.

He woke from these dreams unsure, even more unsure than he did from the fantasy ones, because the reality had the potential to be much more alarming. He had struggled with the Force for so long, having felt it in his blood all his life but falling from one extreme to the other, and on that day he'd just let go – let it all in, light, dark, all of it, and let it guide him to use it. And it had guided him into an alliance with the most dangerous person he knew, the scavenger rebel who knew nothing of her own appeal and power, which should have made him wary if he were any less arrogant, but instead it had felt right, and worse: it had felt like Not Alone.

It was short-lived, the warmth of Not Alone. Inevitably the final guard wrestled him into a dangerous headlock and she threw him the lightsaber that should always have been his, and it struck true as willed by the Force that ran through him like water, that ran through her like water, and he stood to see the truth of what he'd done to Snoke and the opportunity left open for them, the will of the vision shown to him when he touched her hand, and he extended his hand for her in turn, but she shut down and clung to the past and all its mistakes, and she disappointed him.

The dreams were invariably violent, but not always in the form of a battle. There were dreams of chasing her, either on foot or in his customised TIE fighter, in which he swelled with fury the longer it took to find her. She ducked and dodged and he could _hear_ her heartbeat thudding like a tiny creature of prey, and when he caught her and dragged her out by her hair or crippled her ship – his father's damn ship – she twisted and cried and kicked and kept trying to limp away, until she realised she couldn't, then became unreasonable, unbending to him even in her downfall. She appealed to him. When he screamed at her she just took it, refused to scream back, refused to accept him or his words for fact. He pushed her, threw her, crushed her, threatened her, but she only ever fought him and told him he was wrong.

" _Why did you hate your father?_ "

Her voice made him feel small, weak with the realisation that she was pure and dainty and kind and _sweet_ and _he_ was a bully, for that was what it was to derive a sense of supremacy from making someone else feel less than what they were, and a beast, for that was what it was to kill a father who loved you, who you loved. Her voice, her words, loaded with pain he'd inflicted – he hated her for the shame she filled him with, and hated the power she had to make him feel that way. At the same time, ashamedly, her voice left him longing, childishly eager to hear it again, for her to bestow her words upon him like he was worth the breath. When she sneered her words of raw anger, straight out of her wounded soul unfiltered, unchecked, they were just for him, directed at him alone, like he was all that existed. Listening to her yell and cry and argue could have sustained him in this way perfectly well, but then he'd learned what it was to listen to her talk… just _talk_. Which she'd done, softly, honestly, openly, in her funny accent, wrapped in a towel to dry off after an accidental dip in the sea some million million lightyears away on Luke Skywalker's hidden island home, unforgettable eyes glinting with a fire he couldn't see through their Force bond. She had no one else, no one else like her, so she'd simply let him listen while she sorted through her confusing experiences out loud, omitting nothing, divulging everything like she had nothing to hide. Letting him in. Innocently trusting him with her hurts. Speaking the truth because it's all she knew, un-self-consciously uttering facts that he'd never truly realised before – that he wasn't alone, even when he might have thought he was.

Things no one else had ever bothered to realise, not even himself, but which had always been true. Snoke's voice had been in his thoughts since childhood, maybe earlier. His choices had not been entirely his own. His path had been tampered with. His life had been derailed without his knowledge, without his parents' knowledge, without his uncle's. How had she known?

Indulging in reflections of what she'd truly meant with her words led him into spirals of uncertainty, for what kind of Dark Knight cares what trickery or dishonest means brought him to his righteous path of the dark side, so long as he arrived? What Supreme Leader needs a scavenger girl to point out glaringly obvious truths about himself that he can't find on his own?

" _I'll help you_ …"

Rey meant every word she said, he knew, and in her own way, she did want to help, but she was a child by comparison to him, in almost every way. She knew so little, about the Force, about love and hate, about the galaxy, about the way of things, about him. Basically everyone else in his life knew more about most things that she did. Yet she'd offered her hand, unbidden, across their Force bond, barely days after trying to shoot him with a blaster in the same manner, proving that while she might never accept him as he was, might always insist on trying to change him, she _understood_ him. She saw him.

And she didn't turn away.

And he shouldn't have been so naïve as to believe the silly hopes of what remained of his innocent heart, but he desired that too completely, and in his unguarded moments, waking and dreaming, he was haunted by her eyes, _seeing_ him, _understanding_ what he was, _wanting_ him on her side.

Their fingertips touching impossibly through space and time.

The shock of electricity shared between them. The Force, untempered, wild and eerie.

The intensity of her vulnerable gaze. Not nobody. Rey. Or were they one and the same, indistinguishable? Which one was it in the dreams where her eyes smouldered a singed hole through his skin into his soul and made his breaths sharper, quicker? Who did he imagine would scrape her nails across his chest and moan his name into his mouth?

Her hands wound in his hair…

Her teeth on his shoulder…

Her distinctive voice in his ear, ever earnest.

Tonight, it was one of these dreams.

" _I know everything I need to know about you_ ," she murmured, hands sliding up the arms that braced him over her up to his shoulders. Eyes sparkling, dangerously tempting in the beautiful, symmetrical face he'd been unable to scar. Her voice sent a quiver of longing through him, and he bent his head to reach her, but she never made anything easy for him. She tightened her fingers on his collarbone and locked her elbows, keeping him away. " _Ben…_ "

That little smile he'd more imagined than witnessed.

He exhaled. " _Please_."

And she gave in to him.

Kylo Ren gasped awake and pushed himself up off his mattress, which just a moment ago had been her smooth body laid out beneath him, and his pillow, which a moment ago had been her shapely mouth, every bit as deliciously soft and responsive as he'd wondered when he'd looked down upon her. He kicked his blankets away and rolled himself into an upright position, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, flicking his forefingers carelessly as he drew his hand away. Dormant torches along the walls burst alight with fresh flames as his suggestion, settling quickly into a quiet burn that illuminated the space without overly brightening it. This huge room he now called his bedchamber had been built for Snoke, he knew, but the Supreme Leader had not lived to see it before the First Order had been forced to flee here to this incomplete flagship. He looked around it now, from the oversized bed (thankfully not containing anyone else despite the inclination of the dream, though he could comfortably fit quite a few playmates in here with him if he chose) to the cabinet of priceless treasures and arts gathered or stolen from across the galaxy, to the table at his bedside where his lightsaber and mask lay at arm's reach, and between it all, the huge matted space that was his personal training area. He could see nothing out of place, no sign of disturbance, no indication of another presence.

He was alert now, so there would be no flicker of pale at the edge of his vision, no murmur, no soft hint of her scent. But he still gathered his knees against his chest and breathed deep and slow until he had himself under control, and listened, and looked, and waited, just in case.

He was pathetic.

He lowered his face into his knees with a groan, feeling sick. Who was he? Thousands of men and women and non-specifics looked to him as their Supreme Leader, Force-wielder, defeater of Jedi and the Republic, but the Kylo Ren of his dreams was variably a vicious murderer, a failure, a tyrant and a traitor. He ran his hands backwards through his overgrown hair and scrunched them into fists, grounding himself in the discomfort and pain of the pull. This had to stop. She was nothing. He was the Supreme Leader. The people she'd become something to in his place were dying off quickly enough. These psychotic dreams of slaughtering, fucking, losing to, torturing, wanting his greatest enemy, Luke's perfect apprentice, Han's perfect daughter, Leia's perfect freedom fighter, they weren't becoming of a man claiming a galaxy for his own.

As much as he hated her, he would hate more to admit that he wished he _was_ her and ached for her admiration and respect. He wanted to kill her as much as he wanted her to trust him and follow him and give more of her perfect, pure self to him, selfish and greedy and fascinated as he was. He wanted to rip her perfect purity right out of her and pull her down to his level where he could sneer at her and say _see, you're nothing, no better than me_ , but at the same time, he wanted her to fight that bit harder and overcome him and prove him wrong, because what would he have left to strive after if she were not out there in the galaxy? As much as he wanted to crush life out of her, he wanted to _feel_ life with her, as he had when they fought together, the Force binding them as a single, beautiful thing, completely in tune with one another's movements, an ethereal tension akin to magnetism working them like crafted dolls on the same string to bring about the Force's will. He'd been one with her, connected, known, seen, understood. Whole.

He had never been whole before.

So it had cut all the deeper when she'd refused him.

She was his equal, Snoke had said. Yet while he was a prince, a leader, privileged and praised, she was a scavenger, nobody, downtrodden and oppressed. And he still wanted her. The idea of possessing her, either by destroying her or capturing her or turning her, was not an alien one to him, but these dreams of intimacy with her? He cringed. Metaphors, he told himself, allusions to the dangerous game of power playing out between them. Jealousy. Anger. Inadequacy. Frustration. Pain. Hurt. Lust. Competition.

He wasn't worthy of Snoke's tutelage. He saw that now. Whether the hand of the Force trying to tempt him back to the light or of Rey herself, he still made the same mistakes night after night.

So it surprised him that his former master never returned to him, either from behind a shadow to reveal he was never defeated or from beyond the horizon of death, to taunt him, to berate him for his betrayal, to punish him. Many great masters of the Force had avoided death or, worse, found their way back to the world of the living to commune with those with whom they had unfinished business, and Snoke had plenty with his traitorous, unstable apprentice, but he never came to see it out. No more screams about his consistent failings. No electric shocks. No unexpected shoves from great heights.

The Supreme Leader Snoke had toyed with Ben Solo's heart and mind since infancy from across a galaxy of stars and systems. He had turned the boy who would have been the Jedi prince of the known worlds into Kylo Ren, mighty descendant of Darth Vader. He had raised the First Order from the ashes of the Empire.

And he was dead.

He had killed his master, completing the final ritual of the darkness.

Snoke's absence didn't make him feel understood or connected or known or seen – rather, it added to the swell of absence he already felt in his life, especially after his soul-wrenching act against his father – but it did make him feel in control, powerful, dangerous.

Like a Sith.

He lowered his feet from the bed and stood, reaching for his lightsaber. Loyally, it flew to his open hand as he walked to the middle of his flame-lit training area. A vague wave of his fingers and holographic soldiers appeared, waiting to be slaughtered, though they always put up a good fight.

"Long live the Supreme Leader," he muttered firmly, igniting the saber.


End file.
